Finite Element Simulation of the Flexural Behavior
of BFRP-FRC Beams
Farid Abed
Professor of Civil Engineering
American University of Sharjah
Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
fabed@aus.edu
Abstract— this paper aims to present finite element modeling
to investigate the flexural behavior of Fiber-Reinforced concrete
(FRC) beams reinforced longitudinally with Basalt Fiber-
Reinforced Polymers (BFRP) bars. A nonlinear 3D finite element
model is developed using the commercial software ABAQUS,
considering both material and geometric nonlinearities. The
prediction capability of the FE model was successfully validated
using the results of experimental tests that were conducted by the
same authors. The results of the FE model showed very good
agreements with the experiments in terms of the moment capacity,
load vs mid-span deflection curves, failure modes and the cracking
behavior.
Keywords—FRC; BFRP; flexure; cracking behavior;FE model
I. INTRODUCTION
Fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP) composites have been used
in structural engineering for almost 50 years for both restoration
of existing structures and for new construction. FRP bars are
non-corrosive and nonmagnetic material which makes it
perfectly appropriate for reinforcing concrete structures within
aggressive environments [1]. There are many types of FRP
materials that have been used as a reinforcement to resist both
shear and flexural stresses in the concrete structures. Glass fiber-
reinforced polymer (GFRP), Carbon fiber-reinforced polymer
(CFRP) and Aramid fiber-reinforced polymer (AFRP) are the
most commonly used FRP composite reinforcement [2]. Basalt
fiber-reinforced polymer (BFRP) is another type of FRP
composites that has been recently introduced and expected to
give advantages that is comparable or better than other FRP
types [3]. The most important concerns in flexural members
reinforced with BFRP is the brittle behavior combined with the
high tensile strength, which makes the BFRP bar behaves
elastically without yielding point. This could result in
catastrophic failure without any precautions, which is not
desirable by the designers. When conventional steel is used as a
reinforcement the ductile behavior of the steel should be
considered in the design to avoid brittle failure of the concrete
structure [4]. Once the steel rebar reaches its yielding stress, the
behavior will take a ductile pattern with a strain hardening
period governed until failure. In contrast, since the BFRP bar
does not have yielding point it will not exhibit any ductile
behavior. Thus, the BFRP bar behavior will be linear elastic until
failure [5]. The researchers had gone through many
investigations that aim to develop a suitable solution to improve
Abdul Rahman Alhafiz
Master Student at Department of Civil Engineering
American University of Sharjah
Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
b00070183@aus.edu
the ductility of the concrete members reinforced with FRP.
Incorporating randomly distributed discrete fibers within the
concrete mix was one of these solutions that overcome the
problems in terms of ductility and deformability of the FRP-
Reinforced concrete members [6-7]. Recently, a new system was
adopted containing these discrete fibers together with FRP
reinforcement namely Fiber-Reinforced Concrete reinforced
with Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (FRP-FRC). Basalt chopped
fibers are newly developed and it is available in many lengths
ranging from 12 to 100 mm and many diameters ranging from
10 to 20 μm. Basalt fiber is existing in filament and bundled
form [8].Once microcracks developed in the concrete structural
member it will propagate as the loads applied. Since plain
concrete is weak in tension, it will not be able to sustain the
stresses and the cracks will continue to propagate and elongate
[9]. Generally, by adding fibers to the concrete mix concrete
properties in terms of flexure, deformation, toughness, ductility
and load carrying capacity after cracking can be improved [10].
The flexural behavior of FRP-FRC Beams have been
recently investigated [11-13]. Yang et al. [11] conducted an
experimental program consisted of 6 rectangular beams to
investigate the influence of adding short discrete fibers to the
concrete mix on the flexural behavior. Issa et al. [12]
investigated the flexural behavior of seven 1.8 meters length
GFRP-FRC beams with rectangular cross sections, and
compared their results with the ACI code prediction. The
equations recommended by ACI 440.1R-06 for moment
capacity calculations underestimated the values of moment
capacity for the GFRP-FRC beams. Wang et al. [13]
investigated the flexural behavior of 12 FRC beams reinforced
with CFRP and GFRP bars. The results showed that the tensile
strength of fiber-reinforced concrete increased by the mean of
fibers bridging. In addition, introducing fibers to the concrete
mix reduced the crack width as compared to plain concrete,
specially, at service load.
In order to understand the flexural behavior of FRC beams
reinforced with different types of FRP bars, it is very crucial to
be able to predict and simulate their failure mechanisms. The
objective of this paper is developing a finite element model to
investigate the flexural behavior of BFRP_FRC beams. Several
researches have been conducted on finite element modeling of
the flexure and shear behaviors of FRP-Reinforced plain
concrete beams [14-16]. However, one study was found in the
literature that modeled the effect of steel and polypropelen fibers
on the behavior of reinforced concrete beams [17]. This study,
however, attempts to develop a nonlinear FE model that has the
ability of capturing the complex behavior of fibrous concrete
(FRC) beams reinforced with FRP bars in terms of moment
capacity, load vs mid-span deflection, cracking behavior and
failure mode.

II. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM

The Experimental program utilized in this presented FE
Figure 1: Concrete tested specimens
study consisted of 5 rectangular beams that have the same
cross-sections of 180 x 230mm and a length of 2.0 meter. Basalt B. Test Setup
microfibers are added to the concrete mix with a volume The experimental program aimed to accomplish the research
percentage of 0.7 to create the FRC composite. The FRC beams objectives throughout the test setup shown in Fig 2. The
are reinforced longitudinally with BFRP rebar. Table 1 refers to specimens were tested under four-point bending over a clear
the details of all specimens. span length of 1.7m and with a constant moment region of 500
mm. The tests were carried out using a universal testing
Table 1: Specimens Details machine (UTM) that has a load capacity of 1200 KN.
fc’
Specimen
Reinforcement microfibers (Mpa) Three strain gauges were connected to each specimen in the
Label compression zone at 10mm from the top and with 50mm
2T12BB1 BFRP Basalt 45 spacing between them. Additionally, three LVDTs were used to
Basalt 45
measure the deflection at quarter, half and three quarters of the
2T10BB1 BFRP beam clear span. The strain and deflection were recorded for
2T16BB1 BFRP Basalt 45 each load increment.
2T12GB1 GFRP Basalt 45

2T12SB1 STEEL Basalt 45

A. Material Properties
The concrete used in this study was cast manually in a ready
mix concrete factory. In addition to the Basalt microfibers, the
materials that were used in the mix included ordinary Portland
cement (OPC), dune sand, coarse aggregate with maximum size
of 20 mm and crushed sand. The mechanical properties of the
concrete were examined using 6 cubes and 6 large cylinders cast
with the proposed beams. Concrete specimens were tested for
the compressive strength at 7 and 28 days and tensile strength at
28 days as shown in Fig. 1. The concrete compressive strength
(a)
at 28 days was found to be 45 MPa.
In addition to the BFRP bars GFRP and steel bars were used
as flexural reinforcement for comparison purposes. Samples
from the used bars were tested under a tensile load in order to
obtain the actual mechanical properties. The ultimate strength
for BFRP and GFRP bars was found to be in the range of
1100MPa and 1000MPa, respectively. The modulus of elasticity
measured experimentally was around 45GPa and 50GPa, for
GFRP and BFRP rebar, respectively. The yield strength and
modulus of elasticity for steel bars used in this study were 420
MPa and 200GPa, respectively.

(b)
Figure 2: (a) Test Setup (b) Beam under Testing
 III. FINITE ELEMENT MODELING
The finite element software ABAQUS was utilized to
perform a non-linear 3D analysis of the five tested beams
considered in the experimental program. Four main material
definitions were used in the FE modeling; the BFRP, GFRP,
steel and concrete. Materials nonlinearity were considered in the
FE analysis by introducing the actual elastic–plastic stress–
strain relationship for the concrete. Also, the (*NLGEOM)
option was considered in the analysis in order to account for
large deformations. The moment capacities, failure modes and
moment-deflection curves were extracted from the FE model for
all beams considered. These results were also verified with the
experimental results.
A. Model Geometry
The FRC beams were modeled using a 3D solid brick element
(C3D8R) with 3 degrees of freedom per node, whereas, the
reinforcement including stirrups were modeled using truss
elements, which only carries axial load during bending. Fig 3
shows the parts assembly of the BFRP-FRC beams as modeled
in ABAQUS. The interaction between the concrete and the
reinforcement was assured to be perfectly bonded by embedding
the truss elements (rebar and stirrups) inside the concrete beam
as the host. Rigid steel plates were assembled at the two loading
points and two supports. Normal and tangential surface-to-
surface contact was defined between the rigid plate and the
concrete beam using the penalty approach. Boundary conditions
in terms of joints translations and displacement loadings were
assigned to the rigid plates through their reference points. The
same size of mesh was used for all of the assembled parts.
(a) (b)
Figure 3: FRC-BFRP Beam Assembly; (a) solid parts for concrete beam
and loading plates (b) truss elements for rebar and stirrups
B. Material Properties
The FE model utilized the experimental tests conducted for
FRC concrete, BFRP, GFRP and steel in defining their
properties in the numerical simulations. For concrete, the
inelastic behavior was modelled using concrete damage
plasticity (CDP) model based on the stress-inelastic stain data.
The CDP approach permits the concept of strain hardening in
compression. The uniaxial stress-strain curves for concrete in
compression is shown in Fig 4. For reinforcement, the modulus
of elasticity and the Poisson ratio were used to define the elastic
effect. The plastic effect was defined using the yield strength for
the steel reinforcement and the ultimate strength for the BFRP
and GFRP bars.
Stress-strain
60
Stress (MPa)
40
20
0
0 0.005 0.01 0.015
Strain
Figure 4: Equivalent Compressive Uniaxial Stress–Strain curve for fiber-
reinforced concrete
C. FE Results & Discussions
The FEM results were validated with their experimental
counterparts by comparing the failure modes, cracking behavior
and the moment vs mid span deflection curves for each beam.
The FE results showed a very good agreement with the results
obtained from the experimental program. In addition, the failure
mode for the finite element model was very close to the
experimental program for all beams which is concrete crushing.
The cracking behavior of the BFRP beams was pure flexural
similar to the experimental outcomes as shown in Fig 5. All
cracks were pure flexural cracks developed in the tension zone
and propagated towards the compression zone in the pure
bending region. The deformation capacity for the FE model was
close to the experimental with an average value of 35 mm.
(a)
(b)
Figure 5: Cracking behavior comparisons between (a) Experiments and (b)
FE simulations
Two parameters were investigated in this study, which are the
reinforcement ratio and the type of reinforcing bars. The effect
of reinforcement ratio was captured by plotting load vs mid-
span deflection response predicated by the FE model and
compared to the experimental one for 2T10BB1, 2T12BB1 and
2T16BB1 beams as shown in Figures 6(a-c). In general, the FE
results showed good comparisons in terms of the stiffness and
load capacity. However, slight deviations were noticed in the
cracking moment (load) between the FE model and
experimental results for the three specimens. The moment
capacity increased by increasing the reinforcement ratio as
shown in Fig. 6. Concrete crushing was the failure mode for all
of BFRP beams. All the beams almost have the same stiffness
except 2T16BB1, which has a considerably higher stiffness. In
general, the addition of fibers improves the ductility of the for GFRP rebar and Fig. 6(b), for BFRP bars. Both BFRP- and
BFRP beams and reduces the mid-span deflection. GFRP-FRC beams have less stiffness than steel FRC beam with
no clear yielding point. The moment capacity for the GFRP
beam was higher than BFRP and steel FRC beams.
80

70 2T10BB1
60 80 2T12SB1
50 70
Load (KN)

40 60

30 50

Load (KN)
20 Experiments 40

10 FE Model 30

20 Experiments
0
0 10 20 30 40 FE Model
10
Midspan deflection (mm)
0
(a) 0 10 20 30 40 50
Midspan deflection (mm)
120 (a)

100
2T12BB1
120

80
100 2T12GB1
Load (KN)

60
80
Load (KN)

40
FE Model 60
20 Experiments
40 Experiments
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
20 FE Model
Midspan deflection (mm)
0
(b)
0 10 20 30 40

120 Midspan Deflection (mm)

(b)
2T16BB1 Figure 7: Load versus deflection curves for FRC beams reinforced with
100
(a) Steel and (b) GFRP rebar

80
IV. CONCLUSION
Load (KN)

60 The flexural behavior of BFRP-FRC beams was investigated

in this paper throughout an experimental and numerical analysis.
40
A nonlinear 3D finite element model was developed using
Experiments
ABAQUS and was validated using the results obtained from the
20 FE Model experimental tests. Material nonlinearity for concrete beam was
included in the FE model. Concrete damage plasticity (CDP)
0
0 10 20 30 40
constitutive model was used to define the inelastic behavior of
Displacement (mm)
the concrete. The comparisons showed a very good agreement
between the FE results and the experimental ones in terms of the
(c)
load (moment) capacity, the cracking behavior and the failure
Figure 6: Comparisons of the load vs deflection curves between the FE mode for all tested specimens. Results showed that the flexural
model predictions and experimental results (effect of reinforcement ratio) capacity of BFRP-FRC beams considerably increases by
increasing the reinforcement ratio. Moreover, the addition of the
Moreover, the effect of the material type of the reinforcing bars Basalt micro-fibers to the concrete mix improved the ductility of
was examined through the moment vs mid-span deflection the BFRP beams and reduced the crack width. The developed
curves. Three different types of reinforcement bars of 12mm finite element model can be used to conduct a further parametric
diameter were used. The corresponding load vs displacement
responses are illustrated in Fig. 7(a) for steel rebar, Fig. 7(b)
study on the flexural behavior of BFRP beams considering all
the parameters that can affect their flexural behavior.

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